New Arrivals: Designing Obama

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There have been tons of excellent projects that have gone live in the past week. Here’s a look at some that got our attention.

Designing Obama: Maybe you’ve heard of this Obama guy? Scott Thomas certainly has — he was the Design Director for the campaign, and this project collects his work, as well as tons of other amazing designers, to provide a definitive statement of the look and feel of the Obama campaign brand. The material is being collected into a book that varies from $10 for a PDF to $150 for an inscribed copy in a gold sleeve to a $10,000 version handmade by Joe Biden. Have you seen that guy’s Etsy store?

PieLab: When this project first rolled in, I double-crossed my fingers and toes hoping that “Pie” meant, well, pie, and that this would be a project to develop new combinations of crust and awesomeness. And while that’s not exactly what this project is about, it’s not terribly far off. Basically a group of creative folks in Greensboro, Alabama (is “Greensboro” the Springfield of the South?), started a pop-up pie shop, and they want to expand it into a center for design, creativity, and, well, pie for their community. Very cool.

Emoji Dick: The work of Fred Benenson — a Creative Commons-er — Emoji Dick is a Mechanical Turk’d translation of Melville’s Moby Dick into Japanese emoji icons, which I didn’t know existed until, err, now. Here’s an example:

This project has proven to be weirdly polarizing on Twitter and Boingboing — people want to know why do this, what its purpose is. Since when did art need purpose?

Fund Nothing: So Fund Nothing is about as descriptive as it gets. According to creator Jeff Edwards, this project is Kickstarter’s first conceptual art piece. The project is looking to raise $100 — 100% of which will be used to give backers certificates of participation that cost exactly $.85 to produce. Jeff has has four takers so far. Should be a fun one to follow.

One Night Stand: A group of comic writers and artists have decided to collaborate on a one-off issue focused on “casual encounters.” (Every Craigslister knows what that means.) The finished comic will not be sexually explicit, they assure us. I’ll probably end up backing anyway.

Help Fund My Brutal Arcade Game: This is the work of a game developer named Mark Essen, and I neglected to include it in last week’s video game roundup because the use of the word “brutal” made me think it was some over-the-top violent thing. But what Mark means by brutal is brutally hard — which this puzzle game is. I watched about 40 seconds of gameplay footage yesterday and had to do some light Foucault reading to keep my brain from destroying itself in confusion.

Showpaper Issue 63: Such a niche project, but one after my own heart. Showpaper is a DIY, print-only zine focused on punk rock and indie shows in Brooklyn. They’re seeking $800 to pay for the next issue.